


The Air Around the Morning Sea

by AbsoluteNegation



Category: Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Community: valentine_smut, Complete, Hygiene as Effective Seduction Technique, M/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2018376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsoluteNegation/pseuds/AbsoluteNegation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tenpou discovers the wonders of personal hygiene, Goujun discovers the wonders of a hygienic Tenpou, and Kenren discovers nothing at all, as his contribution to the situation is completely unwitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Air Around the Morning Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tarnished_ink](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tarnished_ink).



> Written for the prompt "Salt".

It had not, he would later conclude, been his fault. Well, not entirely his fault, at any rate. One-third, perhaps. Half at the very outside.

Goujun had been minding his own business, really, in his own office, with his own...incredibly unintelligible reports from subordinates...when Tenpou had turned up to ruin his life. To be fair, it had been a scheduled turning-up, made at Goujun’s request, but he really didn’t feel that that had much bearing on things, in the end. The knock had come unexpectedly, as Goujun had been engrossed in trying to decipher a report, and it had taken Goujun a moment to remember that he had asked Tenpou to meet with him. Irritated with himself for forgetting (and with the report for being basically bloody opaque), he issued a gruff order to enter as he rolled up the scroll.

Tenpou’s oddly fluffy head appeared around the edge of the door, along with an oddly warm smile for so early in the day. “Good morning, Commander,” Tenpou said as the rest of him made its way into the room as well. “How are you today?”  Goujun sighed for the distinctly probably-more-than-half-but-definitely-less-than-whole-assed salute Tenpou offered, not bothering to return it, since Tenpou didn’t bother waiting for it, in any case.

“Marshal,” he greeted as he eyeballed the scrolls tucked under Tenpou’s arm. “Should I bother offering you a seat, or will we just wind up over at the sideboard in two minutes anyway?”  An edge of scent reached him as Tenpou closed in on the desk, and Goujun made a semi-conscious mental note to tell the office staff not to burn (really quite nice) incense during the day. It was a military office, for crying out loud.

Tenpou’s grin answered the question well enough that Goujun was already standing by the time he answered, “You know me too well, I’m afraid.”  Tenpou’s shoulder nudged Goujun’s (a tendency to proximity that Goujun had largely learned to ignore, as Tenpou had always seemed determined to contravene as many conventions as possible, where his superior was concerned) as they walked to the long table that took up a large portion of one wall. Something pricked at his mind, but he didn’t have time even to properly notice it before they reached and Tenpou hauled the two smaller scrolls from under his arm, tossing them out of the way so he could open the largest one and lay it on the table.

“This is the new training for the First Platoon, sir. I’ve been working out some new exercises for them to do Down Below.”  Well, the map certainly _looked_  new, with a  topography he’d never seen before. He restrained another little sigh as he reached across Tenpou in a failed attempt to grab the other end of the scroll, which Tenpou only just managed to rescue, instead. The scent was a fair bit stronger over here, sweet and a little bit floral, and while it was pleasing, it really was _not_ fitting for this setting.

Leaning over with Tenpou, Goujun took another look at the map. Definitely previously unused ground; something of a valley, with a few different features for cover, and residual annoyance from that damned report must have been getting in the way of his taking it in. Finally, on the fourth pass, he thought he had a decent grasp of the picture. “Where is this, then?  I’m quite sure I’ve never seen it.”

Tenpou grinned, and Goujun was interested to find himself returning it easily. “I decided to try a foreign landscape, this time,” he explained. “It’s in the north of India. I thought I’d let them have some training somewhere they hadn’t been before, see what it does to their adaptability.”

Tenpou turned his head to blink widely up at Goujun when he straightened, and it was the first time Goujun could recall ever having noticed Tenpou’s eyes, rather than his glasses. He cleared his throat (and that thought from his head), and answered pointedly, “Well, good. They need practice.”

“I didn’t think they were that out of shape,” Tenpou protested with a look of wounded pride which, though undoubtedly practiced, still made Goujun’s stomach tighten a little. Honestly, for a grown kami - an officer! - to behave in such a way…Goujun should never have begun indulging him, frankly, and now, of course, it was far too late. The Marshal had long since managed to make for himself a nice little exceptional nest in the middle of Goujun’s expectations, and settled in quite comfortably.

As a direct result his present glower definitely lacked the ferocity he felt it needed. Tenpou was smiling at him again, hair falling in oddly shining lines against his neck as he tilted his head slightly in response. “You know to what I am referring, Marshal, and you would do well to take it under advisement. Even that sad excuse for a General seems to be on our side.” It hadn’t been very long since Kenren’s arrival, but already things seemed different. Tenpou did.

“Yes, yes, I was considering that, as well,” Tenpou conceded, turning back to the map to trace a finger down the length of the valley depicted there. “He’s quite the strategist, you know.”

Goujun shook his head at Tenpou’s defense and leaned over to get a better look at where Tenpou was pointing. “Mm, he’s got that hipflask positioned perfectly.” The scent from earlier struck him again as he got close; it hadn’t gone away, but he’d sort of put it at the back of his mind, until now. When he got closer to Tenpou. Which was odd on the deepest, most fundamental level, and no wonder his mind hadn’t picked up on it right away. Goujun had smelled Tenpou a lot, and that usually consisted of something at least vaguely unpleasant.

“As I said,” Tenpou went on with a smirk, “quite the strategist.”

Well, fine, he couldn’t quite stop the little chuckle that got from him. The Marshal’s company was oddly calming today, which Goujun chalked up to either the relative frustration of trying to figure out that report earlier, or that odd absence of odour unbalancing him. “I’ll thank him to prove it, then,” he answered quietly, but with good humour.

Tenpou straightened up for a moment, catching and Goujun’s gaze. “He did prove it the first mission, you know.” He held the look for a long moment before moving on. “I was thinking to split the group in two.” Tenpou’s hair brushed lightly over Goujun’s chin as he leaned over to the map again, and a wave of scent washed over him, distracting him from the rest of Tenpou’s plan. It was identifiable, this close, as some kind of mango variant...and, incredibly, as some kind of _Tenpou_  variant, underneath it. Not just, as he had previously thought, an absence of unpleasantness, but actively pleasant Tenpou-smell, deeper and cooler than he had noticed before, with an edge of salt, like the air around the morning sea. “...without mine in the way.”

“Mm,” Goujun replied in an effort not to let his distraction show. It was, as so many things around Tenpou seemed to be, too late. Goujun’s senses had been captivated, and he leaned in a little bit closer, another deep breath, though he tried to keep it slow enough to go unnoticed.

Tenpou blinked, but went on easily, with no other indication that he’d caught anything at all, “Ideally, of course, I’d like the platoon to have some experience fighting on steep and slippery terrain, so I thought I’d time the exercise after a good bit of rain.”  Goujun nodded, trying valiantly to pay attention to both the map and Tenpou’s words, while his body was increasingly convinced that it _really_  needed to pay attention to that scent rising from Tenpou’s collar. “Obviously,” Tenpou went on somewhat more quietly than he had been, “this isn’t experience they can get in Heaven.”

I was a good thing, he would later understand, that he had developed a kind of muscle-memory of military concepts that allowed him to grab keywords and to craft some kind of relevant response. “You should keep them there for a while,” Goujun heard himself say. “Make sure they get the idea of different conditions with the soil, as well as the sloping.” He could tell that it wasn’t the most intelligent thing he could have said, but it seemed passable, so he let it go at that and went back to the pressing matter of sniffing the Marshal.

Because Goujun hadn’t ever known that Tenpou smelled like this. He also hadn’t ever noticed just how damned _close_  he tended to be. Had he always been close like that? Looking back, Goujun was forced to conclude that he had, but had no one else to compare it to, in terms of Tenpou-behaviour. In terms of how other people tended to act, sure Tenpou was way off here, but if normal people were the measurement, Tenpou was way off everywhere, so he wasn’t sure that was helpful.

After a moment, he realised that Tenpou had gone still and was looking at him in a distinctly odd kind of way, and Goujun moved back a little bit. Tenpou, however, did not, only tilting his head in that strangely deliberate kind of way that Tenpou had about things. Goujun had the distinct impression that something had happened, and he’d missed it in the pale flash of skin that the gesture revealed. “Exactly,” Goujun heard Tenpou say, distantly. “I was thinking of a full twenty-four hours.”  The smile returned, brightening the eyes Goujun had only so recently noticed, and it was really quite engaging, too. “Perhaps even a camp-out.” He was close enough, now, had breathed in enough of Tenpou to be able to separate it. The fruit scent was definitely overlaid, and was definitely coming from Tenpou’s oddly soft, shiny hair, and there was something else, too, some kind of lightly floral soap, but that wasn’t all.

No, that wasn’t all by a long shot. He could feel a soft growl wanting to rumble in his chest at the way those other smells were covering what he was really after, the thing under all of it that made Goujun’s scales tingle on the back of his neck, around his horns and those sensitive spots on his chest. The thing that touched his memories just right, that caressed his instincts with the remembered sensation of a cool, saline breeze that promised the excitement of the waves, the pure power of the water.

“Of course,” Goujun heard himself say, and his voice sounded strangely quiet. “An overnight campaign would be good for the men.” He knew he’d moved too close, could feel the heat of Tenpou’s breath on his cheek, but it never occurred to him to move away, and Tenpou didn’t, either.

“There’s a town within hiking distance,” Tenpou offered, barely more than a murmur. “We could make that our point of entry, if you want to add an aspect of endurance.”  The scent shifted almost imperceptibly, as did the length of Tenpou’s breath, and Goujun let habit take that one, too, the rest of him caught and not terribly inclined to break free.

“Mmhm.” Goujun inhaled again, a long, sensual breath, deep with the cool that clawed lightly at his mind. “Even if it does get you whatever you’re after, too.” Goujun found himself looking into Tenpou’s gaze, suddenly as unwilling to look away as he was to stop breathing in that beguiling scent.

“I never said I had anything else in mind,” Tenpou said, swaying slowly closer, his gaze locked on Goujun’s. When he swayed back, Goujun went with him, a step closer, too close...too damned close. “That’s a bit unkind, don’t you think?”

Goujun barely heard, trapped between scent and sight and instinct, and he could feel the soft, lean muscle under the fabric newly pressed to his palm, to his fingers, part of him aware that this could go very wrong, while the rest patently couldn’t give less of a fuck. Tenpou was here, close, a promise of pleasure and release, the invitation of half-closed eyes and the deliberate baring of vulnerable flesh from a body otherwise eerily still.

He didn’t really notice the soft, piping kind of half-growl that lurked in his throat for that, and he didn’t know when he’d gotten close enough for the tip of his tongue to slide so very easily over the length of Tenpou’s jaw, either, the salt sting of kami sweat sharp in his mouth. Tenpou’s moan tripped and slid along his nerves, a slow burn to instinct that broke with the hand that curled tightly into his hair and the sound of Tenpou’s voice, low, slightly trembling, and fierce.

“It’s about fucking time, Commander.”

 

 


End file.
